The Chase and the Catch

Blurb: After one of his fans committed suicide, John lost everything: lover, confidence, drive. When he is given a chance to get back on his feet, he is happy to take it—even if it’s just writing an actor’s biography. It might not be romance, or even fiction, but it’s something, and there are worse people to work for than the charming, successful Parker Chase.

That doesn’t mean working for Parker is easy, however. A staunch supporter of living for the moment, Parker goes against everything John believes in. He feels out of place in every moment of Parker’s Hollywood life, stuck in a game of wits that at times seems almost contrived…

Review: Two men who seem to be victims of their circumstances find their way free from much that haunts them, as they come to care for each other.

John is a romantic. He even writes romance and poetry professionally. Well he did before a horrible tragedy shook his world up and took his confidence away. Now he suffers from anxiety and is haunted by nightmares and a huge case of writer’s block. But the core of that hopeful and principled man is still there and he still believes in happy endings and eternal love, even if he hasn’t been able to find them for himself.

Taking a trip to sunny LA and escaping the snow of his native Canada with the added bonus of getting to know megastar Parker Chase seems like a good choice. What is the worst that could happen?

Parker is temptation wrapped up in sex, sin and mischief. He can be alternately charming and cruel, humorous and an ass, gentle and commanding. Cynical and jaded his pursuit of John is immediate and persistent. Parker professes to believe the opposite of John in matters of romance, sex and love. There are moments where he seems as caught up in John as John is slowly being pulled into his web. John gets pulled into the undertow of Parker.

At times John seems a little naive and sometimes condescending in his ideology. There is a sense that he looks down on Parker and his lifestyle and friends, even as he is lured further into it. But to be fair Parker is the same way about his lifestyle, philosophy and choices. Both feel a certain small amount of pity, superiority, and envy towards the other’s view of the world. Both seem irresistibly drawn to the other man. The lust and tension increases throughout their time together.

William has been there watching over and helping to minimize the damage of pranks and misdeeds since Parker’s childhood. There is an immediate ease of common values between William and John and they become friends and confidants. At times it seems that William is John’s only ally in this strange new world.

Hollywood is simply a backdrop for the story and we do not spend a lot of time with the details or lives of actors. Parker isn’t working so that he can be there to spend time with John and tell his story for the book.

A good story that held my attention through a lot of buildup and sexual tension. I felt I knew John well, and while Parker was intentionally a mystery, I think we began to see behind the masks to the man hidden beneath.